The thing is, if cable companies and dish companies keep pulling this kind of thing they're going to just speed up their demise and force Showtime and AMC and whoever happens to be next to start offering online subscriptions without going through a TV provider.

And that will be a win/win/lose (win for consumers, win for the networks, lose for TWC, Dish, et al.)

FTFA: "A la carte is never going to happen," BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield said. CBS added that "anyone familiar with the entertainment business knows the economics and structure of the cable industry doesn't work that way and isn't likely to for some time."

Time-Warner ought to be careful here. This is a nasty can of worms they are offering to open. I currently pay about $15 dollars a month for the basic cable package that includes the major networks, C-SPAN, 2 PBS, and a bunch of garbage channels. I only really carry this for football, and I'm just too lazy to cancel it the other 7 months of the year. If they want to start a conversation about a la carte channels, they are gonna find a lot of people who start offering to pay for exactly 5 channels, no more and no less.

Also:

gfid:he thing is, if cable companies and dish companies keep pulling this kind of thing they're going to just speed up their demise and force Showtime and AMC and whoever happens to be next to start offering online subscriptions without going through a TV provider.

And that will be a win/win/lose (win for consumers, win for the networks, lose for TWC, Dish, et al.)

I think you might not realize that Time Warner Cable is a massive internet provider, and they would probably start charging for data nationwide (I still pay a flat fee for unlimited broadband in my area).

gfid:The thing is, if cable companies and dish companies keep pulling this kind of thing they're going to just speed up their demise and force Showtime and AMC and whoever happens to be next to start offering online subscriptions without going through a TV provider.

And that will be a win/win/lose (win for consumers, win for the networks, lose for TWC, Dish, et al.)

If you don't hold the line somewhere, it's a dollar more every. single. year. until the stratosphere is breached.

Going a-la-carte could be a win for consumers maybe. It's very little win for the networks. The number of people willing to pay for the a-la-carte is much smaller. Right now, lets say AMC gets 40 cents for every single cable subscriber (whether they watch AMC or not). In the a-la-carte model, they have to charge more than 40 cents, since not everyone wants AMC. If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

Lawnchair:If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

Also, I should point out that the people the do get to pay them $4 a month aren't going to put up with 15 commercials per hour. People, joy of psychology, put up with tons of commercials on their "free" (even though they're paying $60+/month) stations.

Blue_Blazer: If they want to start a conversation about a la carte channels, they are gonna find a lot of people who start offering to pay for exactly 5 channels, no more and no less.

Until we find out that those 5 channels will be more expensive a al carte than just subscribing to "basic" service. That's the payback cable providers gave out for being forced to provide a la carte by the FCC: make it inconvenient to the customer to hand pick which channels they want. And that's exactly what they are doing to CBS.

CBS isn't so innocent in this mess either. Per FCC rules, TWC must continue to carry the channels during negotiation. When the screens went black, it's because CBS turned it off, not TWC. Ever since the Viacom threat a few years ago, TWC predicted that if they gave in to those demands, everyone else will follow suit when the contracts are up for renewal. Lo and behold, just about every content provider has demanded higher fees when the contract has come up for renewal.

Lawnchair:Lawnchair: If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

Also, I should point out that the people the do get to pay them $4 a month aren't going to put up with 15 commercials per hour. People, joy of psychology, put up with tons of commercials on their "free" (even though they're paying $60+/month) stations.

There goes another major revenue stream.

When a compelling program is on a particularly commercial laden channel (wait, thats all of them) I'll tune to that channel, hit pause and go do some mundane task around the house for 45 minutes or so. I come back to the TV and rocket through the commercials. Win/win but a pita nonetheless.

Lawnchair:gfid: The thing is, if cable companies and dish companies keep pulling this kind of thing they're going to just speed up their demise and force Showtime and AMC and whoever happens to be next to start offering online subscriptions without going through a TV provider.

And that will be a win/win/lose (win for consumers, win for the networks, lose for TWC, Dish, et al.)

If you don't hold the line somewhere, it's a dollar more every. single. year. until the stratosphere is breached.

Going a-la-carte could be a win for consumers maybe. It's very little win for the networks. The number of people willing to pay for the a-la-carte is much smaller. Right now, lets say AMC gets 40 cents for every single cable subscriber (whether they watch AMC or not). In the a-la-carte model, they have to charge more than 40 cents, since not everyone wants AMC. If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

If the contracts don't forbid it the channels should sell a-la-cart live access via their website. I won't pay $60-100 a month for cable ever but I would pay for accesses to the 5-6 channels I like. Let me buy a live pass and make an App I can watch on roku, appletv, whatever.

Carth:Why would anyone in a major pay for the broadcast networks? You can get them free in HD with a small antenna.

Because if you want any cable channels, having one set of programming come in via the cable box and the other via antenna will obligate you to switch the video source on your TV. There are a lot of people in this world who are not smart enough to figure out how to do that.

Besides, the cable company provides a nice program guide for the broadcast stations, and you won't get anything that nice over the air. And how would you record those channels if you wanted to?

pdieten:Carth: Why would anyone in a major pay for the broadcast networks? You can get them free in HD with a small antenna.

Because if you want any cable channels, having one set of programming come in via the cable box and the other via antenna will obligate you to switch the video source on your TV. There are a lot of people in this world who are not smart enough to figure out how to do that.

Besides, the cable company provides a nice program guide for the broadcast stations, and you won't get anything that nice over the air. And how would you record those channels if you wanted to?

pdieten:Carth: Why would anyone in a major pay for the broadcast networks? You can get them free in HD with a small antenna.

Because if you want any cable channels, having one set of programming come in via the cable box and the other via antenna will obligate you to switch the video source on your TV. There are a lot of people in this world who are not smart enough to figure out how to do that.

Besides, the cable company provides a nice program guide for the broadcast stations, and you won't get anything that nice over the air. And how would you record those channels if you wanted to?

the programming guide would still be allowed to show what is airing on CBS/showtime. But does anyone actually use that anymore? The internet is so much quicker to look up what is on and when.

Switching sources would be more of a pain if there were 5-6 channels on antenna you needed to watch but with only one you hit the source button and CBS is on. Much easier than entering '854' or whatever arbitrary number they make it now. I never bothered recording anything since it is all available on demand (except sports) but sports most people watch live.

People would have to decide for themselves if switching the source to watch CBS is worth $25 a year. Hell assuming NBC, ABC and FOX want the same amount of money you could save $100 a year watching the networks over antenna if you really need cable.

pdieten:Because if you want any cable channels, having one set of programming come in via the cable box and the other via antenna will obligate you to switch the video source on your TV. There are a lot of people in this world who are not smart enough to figure out how to do that.

Besides, the cable company provides a nice program guide for the broadcast stations, and you won't get anything that nice over the air. And how would you record those channels if you wanted to?

Not to mention you can't exactly pay for just the cable networks and grab the broadcast stations over the air for free.

Blue_Blazer:FTFA: "A la carte is never going to happen," BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield said. CBS added that "anyone familiar with the entertainment business knows the economics and structure of the cable industry doesn't work that way and isn't likely to for some time."

Time-Warner ought to be careful here. This is a nasty can of worms they are offering to open. I currently pay about $15 dollars a month for the basic cable package that includes the major networks, C-SPAN, 2 PBS, and a bunch of garbage channels. I only really carry this for football, and I'm just too lazy to cancel it the other 7 months of the year. If they want to start a conversation about a la carte channels, they are gonna find a lot of people who start offering to pay for exactly 5 channels, no more and no less.

Also:

gfid: he thing is, if cable companies and dish companies keep pulling this kind of thing they're going to just speed up their demise and force Showtime and AMC and whoever happens to be next to start offering online subscriptions without going through a TV provider.

And that will be a win/win/lose (win for consumers, win for the networks, lose for TWC, Dish, et al.)

I think you might not realize that Time Warner Cable is a massive internet provider, and they would probably start charging for data nationwide (I still pay a flat fee for unlimited broadband in my area).

The religious channels and sex channels will never alllow it and will lobby like last time to get it banned.

Fear the power of the whore channels that do anything for money on tv. Also the channels that show porn too.

pdieten:Besides, the cable company provides a nice program guide for the broadcast stations, and you won't get anything that nice over the air. And how would you record those channels if you wanted to?

They do actually make DVRs for OTA antenna TV. That said, I'm not sure I'd bother at this point. The four main commercial networks + Univision have all made noise that they're planning to get out of the transmitting-by-antenna business sooner rather than later. Especially if they can get paid to vacate the 470-700 MHz band to phone providers (which is also happening). It's a tad complicated with the affiliate model over much of the country and contracts like the NFL, but it's coming. People who are poor/cheapskates enough to use antennas (raises hand) are a crappy target demographic anyway.

GBB:Blue_Blazer: If they want to start a conversation about a la carte channels, they are gonna find a lot of people who start offering to pay for exactly 5 channels, no more and no less.

Until we find out that those 5 channels will be more expensive a al carte than just subscribing to "basic" service. That's the payback cable providers gave out for being forced to provide a la carte by the FCC: make it inconvenient to the customer to hand pick which channels they want. And that's exactly what they are doing to CBS.

Then I'll just give up and go back to streaming/pirating 100% of the time. Doesn't really matter to me I guess, but I'll pay for my TV while it's a reasonable price.Although I live in a mixed market for NFL games, so it's a crap shoot whether I actually get the games I want to see on my TV. Half the time I have to pirate stream them anyway.

GBB:CBS isn't so innocent in this mess either. Per FCC rules, TWC must continue to carry the channels during negotiation. When the screens went black, it's because CBS turned it off, not TWC. Ever since the Viacom threat a few years ago, TWC predicted that if they gave in to those demands, everyone else will follow suit when the contracts are up for renewal. Lo and behold, just about every content provider has demanded higher fees when the contract has come up for renewal.

This isn't quite true. TWC pulled the channels. "Must Carry" only applies to broadcast channels that are offering the service free (usually PBS and religious channels). As soon as a network tries to charge a carriage fee, they forfeit their "Must Carry" rights.

Enormous-Schwanstucker:Lawnchair: Lawnchair: If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

Also, I should point out that the people the do get to pay them $4 a month aren't going to put up with 15 commercials per hour. People, joy of psychology, put up with tons of commercials on their "free" (even though they're paying $60+/month) stations.

There goes another major revenue stream.

When a compelling program is on a particularly commercial laden channel (wait, thats all of them) I'll tune to that channel, hit pause and go do some mundane task around the house for 45 minutes or so. I come back to the TV and rocket through the commercials. Win/win but a pita nonetheless.

I just wait an hour or two and my torrent program automatically grabs them from my private tracker. Already stripped of commercials. Seeing as I work from home, I don't have to worry about spoilers from co-workers.

Not just CBS but all CBS owned channels--Showtime, Smithsonian, CBS Sports.

Time-Warner's douche move is perfectly timed, as CBS has the PGA Championship this weekend, The last season of Dexter and the first of Ray Donovan are in full-throttle on Showtime and football is right around the bend with fall seasons starting at the same time.

Carth:If the contracts don't forbid it the channels should sell a-la-cart live access via their website. I won't pay $60-100 a month for cable ever but I would pay for accesses to the 5-6 channels I like. Let me buy a live pass and make an App I can watch on roku, appletv, whatever.

Yeah, this is what I meant. I wasn't talking about a la carte through cable or a dish company.

I would pay $5 a month for something like AMC even if II had to put up with commercials. Showtime doesn't have commercials, so I'd probably shell out $5-10 for that. I definitely would for HBO. I might get a few other cable channels at $5 a pop. I'd still be paying a lot less than for cable and it might give channels that used to be halfway decent but are now mostly reality crap or constant reruns incentive to provide some halfway decent original programming again.

I've only had a Roku a few months, but I'm seeing more and more new stuff pop up there all the time. Not all of it's free, but a lot of it is.

An antenna isn't really practical for me given terrain and distance from broadcasters.

Comcast was just so bad and kept constantly raising prices, dropping channels, failing to deliver OnDemand that I fired them and I refuse to get a contract with Dish or Direct especially when I can't be guaranteed that what I want to watch won't be disrupted by another dispute like the one last year with AMC.

The old school exclusive cable contracts for towns required educational channels which Ted Turner set up to win the game in thousands of little towns. Now those channels are running anything but educational shows and those cities should look at the fine print on the exclusive contracts and end them at once.

FTA "Letting customers cherry pick the channels they want could cut revenue of media companies. Needham & Co estimated in July that the cable industry including media content providers could lose 50 percent of its revenue, about $70 billion, if the a la carte was widely adopted."

And it is important that the cable companies continue to extort $70 billion from the public.

Where I live, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, there isn't a single station on TV or radio that I can get a clean signal from, so the only way we get TV is by cable or Dish. While a lot of the stuff I watch (not that much to be honest) is available in other ways (Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes, etc.) the one thing we can't get that we like is the morning news to play in the background while we're getting up in the mornings.

If I could find a good reliable stream for that, I'd quite cable TV in a heartbeat!

Carth:cameroncrazy1984: Lt. Cheese Weasel: cameroncrazy1984: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Pay even more for something that is already free over the air? Yea, no. Both CEOs can go fark themselves with a rusty chainsaw.

Showtime is free over-the-air? Where?

No, meant just the CBS content.

Okay well too bad you're not just paying for the CBS content.

FTFA:RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank estimates that CBS currently receives $1 per month, per subscriber and is seeking to double that to $2 per subscriber.

Sure sounds like they want to charge extra for just CBS content.

I believe this means all CBS-owned content, including the other channels that CBS owns, such as Showtime.

Carth:cameroncrazy1984: Lt. Cheese Weasel: cameroncrazy1984: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Pay even more for something that is already free over the air? Yea, no. Both CEOs can go fark themselves with a rusty chainsaw.

Showtime is free over-the-air? Where?

No, meant just the CBS content.

Okay well too bad you're not just paying for the CBS content.

FTFA:RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank estimates that CBS currently receives $1 per month, per subscriber and is seeking to double that to $2 per subscriber.

Sure sounds like they want to charge extra for just CBS content.

That seems like a pretty darn good deal for the most watched network on television.

alkhemy:Where I live, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, there isn't a single station on TV or radio that I can get a clean signal from, so the only way we get TV is by cable or Dish. While a lot of the stuff I watch (not that much to be honest) is available in other ways (Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes, etc.) the one thing we can't get that we like is the morning news to play in the background while we're getting up in the mornings.

If I could find a good reliable stream for that, I'd quite cable TV in a heartbeat!

Define 'the morning news' a little better, if you would please.

If NPR is an option (and you just can't get radio signal), virtually every NPR station streams legally.

Is local news a requirement? Several world TV broadcasters in English out there on streaming and/or free-to-air satellite dish. Al Jazeera English, Jewish News One, China Central TV, NHK World, France 24, Russia Today, etc. (I may have some weird world views after all that).

The cheapest paid plan out there right now is Dish Network's "Welcome Pack" (which they don't advertise, but it's only $20/month for locals and some odd stuff). That package can't last long at that price, though, if all the network affiliate stations start demanding $2/sub/month (and probably $3 next year and $4 the year after that).

Fireproof:Carth: cameroncrazy1984: Lt. Cheese Weasel: cameroncrazy1984: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Pay even more for something that is already free over the air? Yea, no. Both CEOs can go fark themselves with a rusty chainsaw.

Showtime is free over-the-air? Where?

No, meant just the CBS content.

Okay well too bad you're not just paying for the CBS content.

FTFA:RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank estimates that CBS currently receives $1 per month, per subscriber and is seeking to double that to $2 per subscriber.

Sure sounds like they want to charge extra for just CBS content.

I believe this means all CBS-owned content, including the other channels that CBS owns, such as Showtime.

Maybe but the article isn't very clear. If the despite stems from the 1992 law allowing the broadcast networks to charge cable companies to retransmit it likely means just CBS.

$1 a month would be very low for CBS Sports, Smithsonian, Showtime and CBS. But it seems about right for just CBS.

They know that if they keep having to raise rates because providers keep upping their carriage fees, that more and more people will continue to cut the cord.

So CBS wants to double their carriage fees from $1 to $2.

ESPN already charges carriage fees of between $5-$6 per customer (yes, that's right. Whether you watch it or not you're paying a very high fee for it, and since it's in pretty much the bottom tier pretty much everyone pays for it.)

And to make matters worse, Network providers (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) are currently considering STOPPING broadcasting and going "Cable Only" - because they KNOW people are cutting the cord due to their high fees and pulling their content for free OTA. So Rabbit Ears or HD Antennas may not matter much in the near future.

A-la-Carte is going to happen at some point. It may be 5, even 10 years down the road for the majority of channels, but they really are going to have no choice. People are just not going to pay $100+/month just for basic channels (everything except HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc.)

Fireproof:Some lemme get this straight: CBS wants to double the price they receive for their content.

TWC says "Fark no, we'd have to raise rates."

CBS: "Fine, we'll just pull our content from you, then!"

Why would I feel the slightest bit sympathetic for CBS in this case?

Because when TWC increases your cable bill next month by $1, you'll be calling TWC and biatching at THEM and demanding to know why your bill went up.

And then when NBC does the same thing 2 months from now, and your cable bill goes up by another $1, you'll call TWC *again*.

And then again when ABC does it. And again when FOX does it. And then again when USA, WB, or whoever else does it.

TWC takes all the heat for the bill because people think that because they can get it for free over the air, that TWC MUST be just ripping them off hand-over-fist by charging $XX dollars a month for "Basic" cable.

It's the same shiat every couple of months. Not long ago it was DISH and AMC. Same story there. AMC wants more money, DISH has to take all the heat & blame for the channel going dark. Eventually they reach a compromise, AMC gets their money, and YOU pay for it.

Girion47:Enormous-Schwanstucker: Lawnchair: Lawnchair: If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

Also, I should point out that the people the do get to pay them $4 a month aren't going to put up with 15 commercials per hour. People, joy of psychology, put up with tons of commercials on their "free" (even though they're paying $60+/month) stations.

There goes another major revenue stream.

When a compelling program is on a particularly commercial laden channel (wait, thats all of them) I'll tune to that channel, hit pause and go do some mundane task around the house for 45 minutes or so. I come back to the TV and rocket through the commercials. Win/win but a pita nonetheless.

I just wait an hour or two and my torrent program automatically grabs them from my private tracker. Already stripped of commercials. Seeing as I work from home, I don't have to worry about spoilers from co-workers.

Nice. I debated going that route but with multiple TV's in the house it's a tad cumbersome to build a distribution system. One day perhaps I'll grow completely tired of sat/cable and develop a solution for this.

Lawnchair:Is local news a requirement? Several world TV broadcasters in English out there on streaming and/or free-to-air satellite dish. Al Jazeera English, Jewish News One, China Central TV, NHK World, France 24, Russia Today, etc. (I may have some weird world views after all that).

Interestingly, every single one of those channels, excluding Jewish News One, is a proproganda channel owned by a foreign government, and Jewish News One is obviously a religious based channel.

I'd be surprised if they let them drop OTA broadcasts since it is a public health concern during local and national emergencies. they'd need to provide some other way of getting content to people free.

However, if dropping OTA means they start showing their broadcast free online I'm all for it.

Geotpf:Lawnchair: Is local news a requirement? Several world TV broadcasters in English out there on streaming and/or free-to-air satellite dish. Al Jazeera English, Jewish News One, China Central TV, NHK World, France 24, Russia Today, etc. (I may have some weird world views after all that).

Interestingly, every single one of those channels, excluding Jewish News One, is a proproganda channel owned by a foreign government, and Jewish News One is obviously a religious based channel.

That's what you get for free... someone with some motive to send it to you. Used to be advertising. But, in the era when most people are paying something to watch, people who won't pay are largely people who won't/can't buy new cars and buy whatever beer is cheapest. Still, enough to fill the 'random noise' space in life for those of us who grew up with a TV-noise addiction.

Carth:I'd be surprised if they let them drop OTA broadcasts since it is a public health concern during local and national emergencies. they'd need to provide some other way of getting content to people free.

However, if dropping OTA means they start showing their broadcast free online I'm all for it.

For the public service component? One PBS affiliate per market would cover that niche adequately. And, as the TWC-CBS thing shows, it's also pretty much irrelevant. Half the country doesn't even know/believe that you can still get TV with an antenna. Most of the rest say, "it's just too much bother to do that". If we were in a situation where we needed broadcast-broadcast TV to get out Civil Defence info, it's already a lost cause. Most people don't have and won't put up antennas (or, again, there wouldn't be blacked out people right now).

As the pool of cable users dwindles, places are just going to be fighting harder and harder to keep a share of it. It's ugly and stupid, but since they are still pretty sure that despite all evidence, they can continue to operate as they have and not move forward.

/1010 wins is owned by CBS//commercials from both sides were big on the blame game

Carth:I'd be surprised if they let them drop OTA broadcasts since it is a public health concern during local and national emergencies. they'd need to provide some other way of getting content to people free.

Who are "they"? The government? There's no requirement/law that I know of that broadcasters have to make their content free OTA, just that if they do, they (now) have to do it via the digital format instead of the old analog. Radio is still the notification service of choice, as everybody has a radio. Not everyone has HD antennas.

However, if dropping OTA means they start showing their broadcast free online I'm all for it.

Free online? Snowballs chance in hell. That's why they want to stop broadcasting in the first place, because it doesn't make them money (it *costs* them money). They'll throw up authentication walls overnight, if they don't have them already. (Making you authenticate/sign in with your cable/TV provider before it will stream any shows to you, like many providers (such as TruTV) already do).

Lawnchair:For the public service component? One PBS affiliate per market would cover that niche adequately

I don't know much about the science of terrestrial television spectrum but if you kept part of it available for PBS wouldn't that defeat the purpose of trying to open it up for other uses? I thought the difference between 1 channel and 10 wasn't that great no?

Looks like according to Nielsen about 30 million Americans use OTA which is less than 10% so not many.

I like the offer. I've never been a cable tv subscriber, until technically this year when comcast insists on bundling a basic package with the awesome internet service they're selling me.

Anyway, I'd have gone full dickhead with the offer. A la carte, and we won't mark up the price at all for 6 or 12 months. You tell us exactly what you want viewers to pay and we'll accommodate it at our expense.

Because the content providers really do seem to be the ones who have driven most of the price increases. It's a little surprising that the dynamic between two interdependent virtual monopolies has been so lopsided, but I guess the cable providers haven't really cared to fight much since consumers still had few alternatives and have generally kept paying. Now that's not necessarily the case and they have something at stake too.

Lawnchair:Half the country doesn't even know/believe that you can still get TV with an antenna. Most of the rest say, "it's just too much bother to do that".

Nah, I think most people know, but the only ones who care would be the ones who don't have cable or satellite, i.e. poor and cheap people, like myself.

If we were in a situation where we needed broadcast-broadcast TV to get out Civil Defence info, it's already a lost cause. Most people don't have and won't put up antennas (or, again, there wouldn't be blacked out people right now).

Eh, I dunno. The EAS is used a lot more than Civil Defense things. When Hurricane Katrina was approaching NOLA, some local stations switched to a 24/7 EAS "GET THE FARK OUT NOW!" message, and it almost certainly saved lives. The idea here is that there needs to be a way to get immediate emergency info out to people who can't afford cable.

Can't do that. CBS blocked ALL of TWC's IPs to CBS.com. Even if you're not in a blacked out market, if you're on TWC you can't watch CBS.com.

But even if you don't HAVE cable (or Fios, or UVerse, or whatever), you can. It's free for everyone. Except TWC. Just another "Fark You" CBS is giving to TWC customers.

Huh. Didn't know that. Especially since TWC was advertising that "you can still watch your shows at CBS.com". I didn't check, because I hadn't missed any shows yet. Honestly, if this wasn't the summer repeats, I probably would have, but I've no need to see the same episode of NCIS for a third time this year, not when I can watch Castle on a different station.

I'll have to check the placeholder screen, when I get back, to see if that advice of "watch CBS.com" is still up.

If I am blocked, and there's something I ~must~ watch, I'll just get one of my brothers to set up a proxy I can go through on his Comcast side of the world.

Enormous-Schwanstucker:Girion47: I just wait an hour or two and my torrent program automatically grabs them from my private tracker. Already stripped of commercials. Seeing as I work from home, I don't have to worry about spoilers from co-workers.

Nice. I debated going that route but with multiple TV's in the house it's a tad cumbersome to build a distribution system. One day perhaps I'll grow completely tired of sat/cable and develop a solution for this.

TVersity is what I use. You run it on the server, and you can then view your files (pretty much any video/audio file) on certain devices anywhere in the house. XBox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, certain Roku boxes, smartphones, tablets, you name it.

You can use Windows Media Center to do the same thing, but I've been using TVersity for soooo long that I haven't even messed around with WMC.

Carth:Lawnchair: For the public service component? One PBS affiliate per market would cover that niche adequately

I don't know much about the science of terrestrial television spectrum but if you kept part of it available for PBS wouldn't that defeat the purpose of trying to open it up for other uses? I thought the difference between 1 channel and 10 wasn't that great no?

Looks like according to Nielsen about 30 million Americans use OTA which is less than 10% so not many.

TV has been packed down several times over the years. Former UHF channels 70-83 (800-900 MHz) were turned into the original cell-phone band in 1982. 52-69 (700-800 MHz) were more recently sold after the digital switch (all TV stations are on RF channels 51 or lower now, although some will show virtual numbers higher than that). The FCC is well down the road of a packing everything into the range below channel 35, freeing the 600 MHz range. The other notion is that LTE is designed to be more flexible, so where there isn't a 'channel 22', they could lease that to Sprint or whoever.

Longer-term, the last stand for the handful of legacy terrestrial broadcasters (i.e., PBS) will be the high-VHF (channels 7-13) band. Those frequencies aren't coveted for mobile phone/data. It's not really optimal for digital TV (which is why that's mostly in UHF now), but it's acceptable and better than the low-VHF (channels 2-6).

mithras_angel:Southern100: mithras_angel:3) You just watch stuff on CBS.com.

Can't do that. CBS blocked ALL of TWC's IPs to CBS.com. Even if you're not in a blacked out market, if you're on TWC you can't watch CBS.com.

But even if you don't HAVE cable (or Fios, or UVerse, or whatever), you can. It's free for everyone. Except TWC. Just another "Fark You" CBS is giving to TWC customers.

Huh. Didn't know that. Especially since TWC was advertising that "you can still watch your shows at CBS.com". I didn't check, because I hadn't missed any shows yet. Honestly, if this wasn't the summer repeats, I probably would have, but I've no need to see the same episode of NCIS for a third time this year, not when I can watch Castle on a different station.

I'll have to check the placeholder screen, when I get back, to see if that advice of "watch CBS.com" is still up.

If I am blocked, and there's something I ~must~ watch, I'll just get one of my brothers to set up a proxy I can go through on his Comcast side of the world.

This article on TheConsumerist says TWC customers in blacked-out markets are seeing this on CBS.com:

dj_spanmaster:So TWC has put a gun to the cable business model's head and said, "Do what we say, or our customers get your channel a la carte." Are they loaded? (The gun, the comments, and the negotiators, all)

Not really. It's all posturing so that TWC can come out and say, "see, we wanted to give you a la carte but the networks won't let us." Don't pay attention to anything anybody says publicly in these negotiations. It's all just PR.

rugman11:dj_spanmaster: So TWC has put a gun to the cable business model's head and said, "Do what we say, or our customers get your channel a la carte." Are they loaded? (The gun, the comments, and the negotiators, all)

Not really. It's all posturing so that TWC can come out and say, "see, we wanted to give you a la carte but the networks won't let us." Don't pay attention to anything anybody says publicly in these negotiations. It's all just PR.

IIRC, this is the first time cafeteria style has been brought up in negotiations, even as a fear tactic. That by itself signifies a change.

If a cunning cable company were to make such a model available to customers, I would strongly consider switching back to cable. But in the meantime I'll get by on OTA, Netflix, and Hulu.

dj_spanmaster:If a cunning cable company were to make such a model available to customers, I would strongly consider switching back to cable. But in the meantime I'll get by on OTA, Netflix, and Hulu.

Oh, I think it's coming. It may be 5-10 years away, but it'll happen. Just as companies like Cricket & MetroPCS starting forcing the big providers to start offering flat-rate cell phone pricing in order to compete, all it will take will be a few companies like HuluPlus to start forcing the network providers to start offering alacarte pricing. (Heck, HuluPlus is almost there already).

Carth:I don't want to comb through tv ratings information but are they also number 1 in the 18-35 demo?

Yes, as fragmented as that demographic is, someone has to be #1. The question is one of loyalty/depth. Tens of millions of people will watch "2 Broke Girls" or "Two and a Half Men" if it's just there, in front of them, and there's nothing better to do. It's very, very broad anesthetizing entertainment. Would tens of millions of people actively pay $2 or $3 of their own money per month to get those sitcoms (and still have dozens of ads per hour)? Some, but not tens of millions. Certainly not if there are any effectively-free sitcom reruns from the past. People are just looking for mindlessness, and there are already more hours of mindlessness already in the vaults than any person could ever watch in a lifetime.

NFL games, sure, lots of people would pay for that, and that's going to be the more interesting question.

Southern100:Because when TWC increases your cable bill next month by $1, you'll be calling TWC and biatching at THEM and demanding to know why your bill went up.

And then when NBC does the same thing 2 months from now, and your cable bill goes up by another $1, you'll call TWC *again*.

And then again when ABC does it. And again when FOX does it. And then again when USA, WB, or whoever else does it.

TWC takes all the heat for the bill because people think that because they can get it for free over the air, that TWC MUST be just ripping them off hand-over-fist by charging $XX dollars a month for "Basic" cable.

It's the same shiat every couple of months. Not long ago it was DISH and AMC. Same story there. AMC wants more money, DISH has to take all the heat & blame for the channel going dark. Eventually they reach a compromise, AMC gets their money, and YOU pay for it.

I've only seen speculation as to how much they are paid now and how much they want to be paid. It's also not JUST the local CBS station. It's also things like Smithsonian, TMC, Flix, and of course Showtime.

I'm not aware of what TWC is countering with, if anything. Are they both holding fast to these numbers which are only publicly being speculated?

And sometimes business costs rise and your suppliers raise prices. TWC need not pass all of that cost directly onto consumers bills. They can play with other costs. They can do all sorts of things besides passing all of the cost directly to the consumer/

Geotpf:Lawnchair: Is local news a requirement? Several world TV broadcasters in English out there on streaming and/or free-to-air satellite dish. Al Jazeera English, Jewish News One, China Central TV, NHK World, France 24, Russia Today, etc. (I may have some weird world views after all that).

Interestingly, every single one of those channels, excluding Jewish News One, is a proproganda channel owned by a foreign government, and Jewish News One is obviously a religious based channel.

Actually, Al Jazeera, NHK and France 24 are pretty good. CCTV and RT are biased as all hell - so much that I usually don't believe anything RT tells me and often just watch for comic relief or to see how a story is playing in Russia. I haven't watched JN1 enough to have an opinion.

I'm not sure if you can stream BBC but you can watch clips of at least some of their news on their site and of course there's the PBS News Hour that you can watch online. SkyNews has just added a channel on Roku so I wouldn't be surprised if they stream over the internet also.

But no matter where you get your news there will be some bias, so you should take that into account and if you care get it from a variety of sources.

I'm doing just fine without being able to turn on CNN, Fox and MSNBC 24/7.

gfid:I've only seen speculation as to how much they are paid now and how much they want to be paid. It's also not JUST the local CBS station. It's also things like Smithsonian, TMC, Flix, and of course Showtime.

I'm not aware of what TWC is countering with, if anything. Are they both holding fast to these numbers which are only publicly being speculated?

One argument that TWC is making (and it's got some common sense behind it) is that in the markets where CBS programming comes through an affiliate (say, Meredith in ATL, KC, and Phoenix), the affiliates are often asking for less than $1/sub/month. Meanwhile, for the exact same content, they're asking $2/sub/month in the markets where CBS owns their stations. This is where the 400-600% numbers are coming from. Of course, Meredith also can't bend TWC over on Showtime and the rest, so they have far less extortionary power.

Not that, if the CBS-owned stations get $2, the affiliates won't start demanding $2 next go-round.

gfid:I'm not sure if you can stream BBC but you can watch clips of at least some of their news on their site and of course there's the PBS News Hour that you can watch online. SkyNews has just added a channel on Roku so I wouldn't be surprised if they stream over the internet also.

If you're in the UK, you can livestream the BBC channels (BBC One, Two, Three, Four) directly on the BBC website, but they're IP locked. You can't view them (legally) from the U.S.

Southern100:Just as companies like Cricket & MetroPCS starting forcing the big providers to start offering flat-rate cell phone pricing in order to compete

I hate to break the news to you, but Cricket has been bought out by AT&T, and MetroPCS by T-Mobile. My guess is that US Cellular will be the next carrier to get borg'd; they've already pulled out of the Chicago market and sold that spectrum to Sprint. Stupidly, they've kept the naming rights to Sox Park even though they no longer serve Chicago.

Southern100:If you're in the UK, you can livestream the BBC channels (BBC One, Two, Three, Four) directly on the BBC website, but they're IP locked. You can't view them (legally) from the U.S.

It looks like, if you're a British citizen and pay the TV license fee, you can sign in to watch. Oddly, some of the BBC's worldwide sites lock out British IPs, on the basis that they are NOT paid for by the license fee.

This dispute is getting all the headlines, but there's also a dispute going on between Dish Network and Raycom media, which has caused viewers in over 30 cities to lose some of their local networks. I lost CBS last week. I was able to watch Under the Dome online since my internet is through a different provider. I connected via Apple TV, so it wasn't a big deal. That's currently the only thing I watch on CBS, so I won't really start complaining unless this drags into football season.

Fubegra:Southern100: Just as companies like Cricket & MetroPCS starting forcing the big providers to start offering flat-rate cell phone pricing in order to compete

I hate to break the news to you, but Cricket has been bought out by AT&T, and MetroPCS by T-Mobile. My guess is that US Cellular will be the next carrier to get borg'd; they've already pulled out of the Chicago market and sold that spectrum to Sprint. Stupidly, they've kept the naming rights to Sox Park even though they no longer serve Chicago.

Yeah, but that's pretty recent. I think that had it not been for Cricket/MetroPCS 5-6 years ago, it would have taken a lot longer for AT&T, Sprint, Verizon & T-Mobile to even consider flat-rate cell service. It probably would have still happened, just would have taken longer. :)

And I think the same thing will happen with Cable/TV at some point. The big companies sure won't do it on their own (at least not without government intervention, and good luck with THAT with the million dollar lobbyists); the only thing that will make them change is competition.

Southern100:Enormous-Schwanstucker: Girion47: I just wait an hour or two and my torrent program automatically grabs them from my private tracker. Already stripped of commercials. Seeing as I work from home, I don't have to worry about spoilers from co-workers.

Nice. I debated going that route but with multiple TV's in the house it's a tad cumbersome to build a distribution system. One day perhaps I'll grow completely tired of sat/cable and develop a solution for this.

TVersity is what I use. You run it on the server, and you can then view your files (pretty much any video/audio file) on certain devices anywhere in the house. XBox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, certain Roku boxes, smartphones, tablets, you name it.

You can use Windows Media Center to do the same thing, but I've been using TVersity for soooo long that I haven't even messed around with WMC.

Interesting. Looks like a pretty easy solution, or at least part of it. My problem is 5 TV's that need content streamed to them means 5 additional set top or related devices but I like the idea of the on the fly transcoding and discoverable nature. Might have to look into that.

Fireproof:Some lemme get this straight: CBS wants to double the price they receive for their content.

TWC says "Fark no, we'd have to raise rates."

CBS: "Fine, we'll just pull our content from you, then!"

Why would I feel the slightest bit sympathetic for CBS in this case?

I don't. I live in one of the six markets where the CBS-owned channels went dark. There are four people living in the house. Only one found himself bothered and that was remedied with an OTA signal antenna attached to the TV in his room.

Now, if TWC lost Cartoon Network and Boomerang, the cat would scream bloody murder. Yes, I have a feline that likes watching cartoons.

You know how big of an asshole you have to be to make people take the cable company's side?

F*ck them both. I'm on my side. I only want CBS for football and golf. So, I got NFL Sunday Ticket for 50 bucks bundled with Madden 25th Anniversary NFL. Problem solved. The golf I can do without, but I have a digital box for an antenna, so meh.

I used to work for the second highest rated cable company. We got bought by TWC. The difference is like night & day.

TWC doesn't care about employees or customers. I work on the business side of things. They have no problem telling customers with $10,000 contracts to fark off, or wait for months for service.

This is the 4th blackout of a channel we've had and every time we've received email talking about the other guys' 'outrageous' or 'ridiculous' demands. Every time. Even the TV message when you turn to Showtime uses the word outrageous.

I read the annual report we were mailed. 5 things were voted on at the shareholders meeting. 4 concerned executive pay and the fifth was to allow more money to be allocated to government lobbyists.

Glenn Britt was paid $15 million in 2011. He did so well that the $6.25 million bonus portion was upped to $6.44 million. He got a $1 million raise in 2012. I haven't been able to find a single person that got a 6.6% raise in the past 2 years.

DreamSnipers:FTA "Letting customers cherry pick the channels they want could cut revenue of media companies. Needham & Co estimated in July that the cable industry including media content providers could lose 50 percent of its revenue, about $70 billion, if the a la carte was widely adopted."

And it is important that the cable companies continue to extort $70 billion from the public.

Fireproof:Some lemme get this straight: CBS wants to double the price they receive for their content.

TWC says "Fark no, we'd have to raise rates."

CBS: "Fine, we'll just pull our content from you, then!"

Why would I feel the slightest bit sympathetic for CBS in this case?

There are no 'good guys' in this fight. It's two multi-billion dollar corporations fighting over money while agreeing the public doesn't have a right to choose cheaper alternatives to get programming.

You know how big of an asshole you have to be to make people take the cable company's side?

F*ck them both. I'm on my side. I only want CBS for football and golf. So, I got NFL Sunday Ticket for 50 bucks bundled with Madden 25th Anniversary NFL. Problem solved. The golf I can do without, but I have a digital box for an antenna, so meh.

Sure, but I'm just sayin', if I gotta choose a side, I will side (grudgingly) with TWC. Only because CBS (and all the other "content providers") believe their product is worth more every year, despite evidence to the contrary. Minus sports, I don't think their argument is persuasive. And it's kind of interesting and amusing to see one of the cable companies (kind of) putting up a fight. Usually they just cave. I'm not sure I believe they care about keeping costs low (because of my $80 a month basic cable bill), but whatever.

I don't give any farks at all about sports. So if they want to drag this shiat out, fine by me.

I will agree that all networks and cable companies are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.

I will agree that all networks and cable companies are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.

Bastards, the lot of them, sure. But, the cable companies are limited. They're finding that they're really bumping into the 'f you' price ceiling where a lot of crap-paid proles will drop. $1000 a year is a bloody lot to a lot of people. The "people won't cut the cord" from the cable companies is starting to sound like Baghdad Bob.

The cable companies will survive, financially, as 'dumb-pipe' internet service providers. Which is exactly what they will be in 15 years. Revenues (and share price) will be down, but they will survive and be profitable on that business alone. The telcos are so inept that they don't really have competition outside the region that already has FIOS. That's what gives them the power to stare down the content companies.

Who is going to be bankrolling dumb sitcoms and reality shows in 15 years? This... this I don't know. Which gives me a little optimism that they might just die.

DubtodaIll:realmolo: Kids growing up these days don't care about TV. They watch YouTube, and probably Netflix.

15 years from now, when the young children of today have their own homes, they won't be paying for cable TV. They won't care. And that's when things will get crazy.

I'm not paying for cable now, I've just got internet + netflix and that provides plenty of entertainment for a much lower cost than cable.

You do realize that is only because of the current model. Many of the shows you like would never have been produced if those specific stations did not automatically receive funding per subscriber.

That said: I pretty much only watch football myself. My TV (For the purposes of cable) has not even been turned on since the last superbowl. I see no reason to watch the broadcasts of the small handful of shows I like and be forced to view the crappy commercials. I would much rather watch commercial free versions.

bionicjoe:I used to work for the second highest rated cable company. We got bought by TWC. The difference is like night & day.

TWC doesn't care about employees or customers. I work on the business side of things. They have no problem telling customers with $10,000 contracts to fark off, or wait for months for service.

This is the 4th blackout of a channel we've had and every time we've received email talking about the other guys' 'outrageous' or 'ridiculous' demands. Every time. Even the TV message when you turn to Showtime uses the word outrageous.

I read the annual report we were mailed. 5 things were voted on at the shareholders meeting. 4 concerned executive pay and the fifth was to allow more money to be allocated to government lobbyists.

Glenn Britt was paid $15 million in 2011. He did so well that the $6.25 million bonus portion was upped to $6.44 million. He got a $1 million raise in 2012. I haven't been able to find a single person that got a 6.6% raise in the past 2 years.

That's why I think A-la-Carte is going to be a reality, soon. There's only so much money they can bleed from Internet customers (which they've already been raising the price of year-over-year), as there's too much competition out there (whereas cable providers pretty much have a monopoly in their respective markets).

Shareholders are going to demand action. and they're going to have to change their business model if they want to stay in business.

Kazrath:I'm not paying for cable now, I've just got internet + netflix and that provides plenty of entertainment for a much lower cost than cable.

You do realize that is only because of the current model. Many of the shows you like would never have been produced if those specific stations did not automatically receive funding per subscriber.

However, if you're just looking for entertainment, millions and millions of hours of TV and movies have already been produced (sunk costs). Much of it unwatchably dated, naturally, but most of it hasn't gone anywhere. More than anyone could ever watch in a lifetime.

Same is true of music. In the '50s, there was only 20-some years of acceptably-recorded history to compete with. Now, there's 80-some years. Lots of dross, but you're still competing for eardrums with the very best of 1960, 1989, and every other year.

Also, like music, there's nothing magic about making low-budget entertainment any more. Anyone with $500 to spend on a PC can make a YouTube series or a garage album, just because they want to, and just because they want people to see/hear it.

Of course, people still buy new novels and there are a million old novels. Not saying there won't be some market for new programming, but it's not going to be like it's been.

Fireproof:Some lemme get this straight: CBS wants to double the price they receive for their content.

TWC says "Fark no, we'd have to raise rates."

CBS: "Fine, we'll just pull our content from you, then!"

Why would I feel the slightest bit sympathetic for CBS in this case?

I have been a TWC customer for 15 years, both cable and Internet. During that time, they have taken away at least seven channels (ESPN Classic, tru tv, cmt, bbc america, fuse, oxygen, and lifetime movie), my access to use groups, and started charging me a monthly fee for my cable modem (which they are raising by another $2 next month). They have raised my bill every year.

Given that, what makes you think TWC would object to raising their rates? Other than the fact somebody else gets my money and not them, of course.

Kazrath:You do realize that is only because of the current model. Many of the shows you like would never have been produced if those specific stations did not automatically receive funding per subscriber.

I dunno, they seemed to do pretty well prior to 1992, when the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act went into effect and started allowing the networks to charge for retransmission. Some might even argue that some of the best shows came from the 80s.

Even if that's not the case though, there are plenty of content MAKERS out there that sell their shows. If CBS hadn't picked up Under the Dome, I bet SyFy would have been more than happy to do so.

(Under the Dome is owned and produced by Amblin Entertainment - CBS only distributes it. Granted, they pay Amblin for that privilege).

Even Netflix has made what, 3 original series so far? House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and one other I can't remember the name of right now. And they don't even have commercials, so the ONLY money they make is from subscriptions (and Billions of that goes to content providers already).

Content isn't really the problem.

Eventually they'll either price themselves out of the market, or find another business model. Either that or eventually they'll wind up with 1 cable customer who keeps forgetting to cancel every month, and his bill will be about $12 Billion a month. :)

Southern100:Even Netflix has made what, 3 original series so far? House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and one other I can't remember the name of right now. And they don't even have commercials, so the ONLY money they make is from subscriptions (and Billions of that goes to content providers already).

House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, Orange is the New Black, and Arrested Development.

Southern100:I dunno, they seemed to do pretty well prior to 1992, when the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act went into effect and started allowing the networks to charge for retransmission. Some might even argue that some of the best shows came from the 80s.

Sure. The advertiser model worked. Which it doesn't any more. In 1992, roughly 40% of the nation still watched only antenna TV (I had to double-check that... I was in a small remote town where it seemed everyone had cable... but that's the number I found). Even with the early Simpsons, Fox was still joked about as an also-ran (their first big sports deal was in '93). Your classic 35-channel analog cable system, minus locals/religious/local-access/home-shopping/Weather/C-SPAN/etc, left only 15-18 slots for the big programmers and superstations. Oh... and no internet diverting attention. A lot of people watched a whole lot of TV and a whole lot of that was on the big three. Which meant big ad revenue. Which meant programming.

Ad rates aren't even good enough to produce reality-TV-rate schlock any more (and keep the executives swimming in coke and the stockholders happy), let alone quality.

Girion47:That's funny, I have Time Warner Cable internet and I still am able to get all of the CBS shows I care to watch.

As I understand it, the CBS block is only in a few TWC markets (where there are CBS stations that are owned-and-operated by CBS Networks, not in markets where there are CBS stations owned and operated by other broadcast companies); basically, if you are in a TWC market where the CBS station isn't owned and operated by CBS Networks, this drama does not apply to you :D

(As an aside--pretty much none of the Former Insight Markets Recently Borged By TWC would need to worry here, because none of our CBS affiliates are owned by CBS Networks--they're all owned by other companies (often Belo in ex-Insight territory). Hence, we can still get streaming CBS shows--which are being blocked in those CBS markets that ARE owned-and-operated by CBS, but not in CBS markets that are owned by the likes of Belo et al.)

But if A&E, SyFy, AMC, and others can produce original programming on 25¢ a month, I *do* have to wonder why CBS wants so much more. And keep in mind that's ONLY to the network itself - the local stations (affiliates) are apparently happy with whatever carriage fees they're getting.

Smelly McUgly:Southern100:Even Netflix has made what, 3 original series so far? House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and one other I can't remember the name of right now. And they don't even have commercials, so the ONLY money they make is from subscriptions (and Billions of that goes to content providers already).

House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, Orange is the New Black, and Arrested Development.

House of Cards and Orange is the New Black are quality programing on par with the best cable has to offer. Arrested Development's new season was a mess and I've never seen Hemlock Grove.

So 2 out of 4 isn't bad. And I hear they're actually helping produce season 2 of Lilyhammer which was good.

Great Porn Dragon:Girion47: That's funny, I have Time Warner Cable internet and I still am able to get all of the CBS shows I care to watch.

As I understand it, the CBS block is only in a few TWC markets (where there are CBS stations that are owned-and-operated by CBS Networks, not in markets where there are CBS stations owned and operated by other broadcast companies); basically, if you are in a TWC market where the CBS station isn't owned and operated by CBS Networks, this drama does not apply to you :D

(As an aside--pretty much none of the Former Insight Markets Recently Borged By TWC would need to worry here, because none of our CBS affiliates are owned by CBS Networks--they're all owned by other companies (often Belo in ex-Insight territory). Hence, we can still get streaming CBS shows--which are being blocked in those CBS markets that ARE owned-and-operated by CBS, but not in CBS markets that are owned by the likes of Belo et al.)

Sorry to disappoint, but CBS.com is blocked on Time Warner here in Louisville. Again, doesn't matter torrents carry everything.

Southern100:But if A&E, SyFy, AMC, and others can produce original programming on 25¢ a month, I *do* have to wonder why CBS wants so much more. And keep in mind that's ONLY to the network itself - the local stations (affiliates) are apparently happy with whatever carriage fees they're getting.

Well, those networks get ad revenue, too, so it's not just $.25/month. You also have to remember, though, those networks air far less content than the broadcast networks. I mean, AMC only airs about 10 original, scripted shows each year or less than 140 hours of content each year. ABC, CBS, and NBC will air that much original content in two months in the fall or spring. And when factor in how many more people watch the broadcast networks, they should be charging WAY more than the cable networks for retransmission. But the paradigm shift hasn't quite caught up yet, and they're having to go slow with the increases.

Southern100:Lawnchair: Ad rates aren't even good enough to produce reality-TV-rate schlock any more (and keep the executives swimming in coke and the stockholders happy), let alone quality.

SyFy seems to do ok, and as of 2009 it was estimated they only charged cable companies around 21¢ per subscriber.

In fact, here's the whole chart (from 2009), taken from this site: http://allthingsd.com/20100308/hate-paying-for-cable-heres-the-reason - why/ and put together by SNL Kagan (an in-depth analysis and proprietary data on the constantly-evolving media and communications business):

Again, these #s are from 2009, so quite a few of them will be higher now, and this doesn't include all the channels available (like the big networks - these are all cable-only channels).

An average of 20¢ a cable channel. Just for the 172 channels listed, that's almost $35 a month JUST in carriage fees, and that doesn't even cover all of the available channels.

$4.08 a month JUST for ESPN. Whether you watch it or not. (and it's estimated it's between $5-$6 today).

But if A&E, SyFy, AMC, and others can produce original programming on 25¢ a month, I *do* have to wonder why CBS wants so much more. And keep in mind that's ONLY to the network itself - the local stations (affiliates) are apparently happy with whatever carriage fees they're getting.

But if A&E, SyFy, AMC, and others can produceoriginal programming on 25¢ a month, I *do*have to wonder why CBS wants so much more.

Three letters SyFy doesn't have. N. F. L. Also March Madness. Also, building up a warchest to compete in the billions for some compelling sports (which is their primary weapon in this arms race).

Personally, I like sports. But, I'll watch womens soccer and lacrosse if its free.

rugman11:Southern100: But if A&E, SyFy, AMC, and others can produce original programming on 25¢ a month, I *do* have to wonder why CBS wants so much more. And keep in mind that's ONLY to the network itself - the local stations (affiliates) are apparently happy with whatever carriage fees they're getting.

Well, those networks get ad revenue, too, so it's not just $.25/month. You also have to remember, though, those networks air far less content than the broadcast networks. I mean, AMC only airs about 10 original, scripted shows each year or less than 140 hours of content each year. ABC, CBS, and NBC will air that much original content in two months in the fall or spring. And when factor in how many more people watch the broadcast networks, they should be charging WAY more than the cable networks for retransmission. But the paradigm shift hasn't quite caught up yet, and they're having to go slow with the increases.

Ok, you have a point. I don't know how many scripted shows someone like ABC airs, but I would consider "Once Upon a Time", "Rookie Blue", and "666 Park Avenue", "Greys Anatomy" etc. original content with considerable production costs.

Following people around with cameras while they yell or make kissy faces at each other though ("Wife Swap", "Extreme Weight Loss", "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette", etc.), not so much. :-) Shows like that cost them almost nothing to make.

But those fees should be filtered up through the LOCAL channels, should they not?

IE, take CBS Houston (an affiliate station, not "owned" by CBS) as an example. It's not affected by the carriage dispute. CBS Houston has to pay the CBS Network for the right to broadcast those shows, so whatever that cost is, is apparently already being covered by their carriage fees and advertising. If the network is so strapped for cash, why aren't they doubling their affiliate fees?

It's only the stations OWNED by CBS that are asking for the (allegedly) higher fees.

And it's a never ending cycle. If every content provider DOUBLED their carriage fees, cable would be dead overnight.

As it is, Carriage fees overall have more than tripled just in the last 10 years. As cord-cutters can attest, many have already said "enough is enough".

Southern100:IE, take CBS Houston (an affiliate station, not "owned" by CBS) as an example. It's not affected by the carriage dispute. CBS Houston has to pay the CBS Network for the right to broadcast those shows, so whatever that cost is, is apparently already being covered by their carriage fees and advertising. If the network is so strapped for cash, why aren't they doubling their affiliate fees?

It's only the stations OWNED by CBS that are asking for the (allegedly) higher fees.

They've probably got contracts with the non-CBS stations regarding those fees, so they can't just hike them any time they want. And the reason it's only CBS stations that are looking for higher fees is because those are the networks up for renewal right now. I'm sure, in the future, other affiliates will do the same thing.

And it's a never ending cycle. If every content provider DOUBLED their carriage fees, cable would be dead overnight.As it is, Carriage fees overall have more than tripled just in the last 10 years. As cord-cutters can attest, many have already said "enough is enough".

You're absolutely right here, and I think it's why these disputes are getting more vituperative and more protracted. The cable companies have realized that we're right about at the maximum that people are willing to pay for cable television and they aren't going to pay much more. I think we're going to move toward more tiered pricing, so that cable companies can keep prices down while still paying the increasing carriage fees. But even that's an uphill battle because none of the networks want to be taken off the basic package, and you have so many conglomerate-owned networks now that they can force cable companies to carry their smaller networks in order to carry the bigger ones. It's going to be a tough fight.

alkhemy:Where I live, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, there isn't a single station on TV or radio that I can get a clean signal from, so the only way we get TV is by cable or Dish. While a lot of the stuff I watch (not that much to be honest) is available in other ways (Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes, etc.) the one thing we can't get that we like is the morning news to play in the background while we're getting up in the mornings.

If I could find a good reliable stream for that, I'd quite cable TV in a heartbeat!

Here in Oregon I get three local stations that steam their morning show online. Have you checked the stations websites?

Good to know...Except I'm not seeing it anywhere. There are BBC audio only things on Roku NewsCaster, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place. I'd actually be willing to pay the British TV tax (or fee or whatever it is) if I could get access to all the BBC channels.

One PBS station where I live runs an hour long broadcast of BBC news up against the other PBS station's hour long broadcast of Al Jazeera (and I don't have a DVR for this stuff so it was a tough choice) - it's really frustrating at times because at other times they just show crap. Oh look, America's Test Kitchen is on 2 different PBS channels at the same time and they're different episodes - whatever.

If it's there, I'll find it.

The 2 PBS stations where I live don't cooperate at all and often their programming decisions frustrate the hell out of me.

I think they like competing against each other. Just one example is they both run yoga shows early in the morning. That's okay even though I'm not into yoga, but why do they air competing yoga shows at the same time? The yoga fans must choose one or the other and miss out on one of them while people like me are just flipping channels wondering why they can't air something like Frontline or Nova since they aired those against each other the previous night.

I know PBS has a video website, but they don't offer everything. It's public television, FFS. Archive it and make it on demand not just for the US, but for the whole world.

And the BBC is funded through TV taxes, right? Okay, I'll cough up the cash if I could watch it whenever I wanted rather than whatever PBS decides to air or subscribing to BBC America which AFAIK is only available if I pay millions of dollars to my local cable monopoly first.

alkhemy:Where I live, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, there isn't a single station on TV or radio that I can get a clean signal from, so the only way we get TV is by cable or Dish. While a lot of the stuff I watch (not that much to be honest) is available in other ways (Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes, etc.) the one thing we can't get that we like is the morning news to play in the background while we're getting up in the mornings.

If I could find a good reliable stream for that, I'd quite cable TV in a heartbeat!

KTLA-5 Livestreams their station (including morning news) at the following times:

Monday-Friday:4 a.m. to 10 a.m.1 p.m. to 2 p.m.6 p.m. to 7 p.m.10 p.m. to 11 p.m.Read more: http://ktla.com/video/#ixzz2bFO3EcfQI'm sure there's more out there that stream their morning shows (as David mentioned above), but they'll be contractually obligated to only stream their own locally produced content, not the content they get from the network. So you can probably get the morning news, but network stuff like "Good Morning America" would be out-of-bounds.

Of course if the LOCAL channels is all you want, IIRC correctly cable providers are obligated to provide those at a heavily reduced price. Comcast calls it "Limited Basic" here in Houston, and it's basically ONLY the 10 or so local channels. No idea what it costs though, it's something you usually have to call the provider to get information about.

gfid:Smelly McUgly: If you have Roku, the private code is BBCN, by the way.

Good to know...Except I'm not seeing it anywhere. There are BBC audio only things on Roku NewsCaster, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

You actually have to input the code after signing into your Roku account on the website.

Here you go, this links to the sign-in. Once you do that, you should be able to input the code. Then, just go to your Roku itself and the channel should be added: http://owner.roku.com/Login/?ReturnUrl=%2fadd%2f

Also, the new season of AD was excellent, to that other guy that posted here. 3-for-4.

Southern100:Kazrath: You do realize that is only because of the current model. Many of the shows you like would never have been produced if those specific stations did not automatically receive funding per subscriber.

I dunno, they seemed to do pretty well prior to 1992, when the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act went into effect and started allowing the networks to charge for retransmission. Some might even argue that some of the best shows came from the 80s.

Even if that's not the case though, there are plenty of content MAKERS out there that sell their shows. If CBS hadn't picked up Under the Dome, I bet SyFy would have been more than happy to do so.

(Under the Dome is owned and produced by Amblin Entertainment - CBS only distributes it. Granted, they pay Amblin for that privilege).

Even Netflix has made what, 3 original series so far? House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and one other I can't remember the name of right now. And they don't even have commercials, so the ONLY money they make is from subscriptions (and Billions of that goes to content providers already).

Content isn't really the problem.

Eventually they'll either price themselves out of the market, or find another business model. Either that or eventually they'll wind up with 1 cable customer who keeps forgetting to cancel every month, and his bill will be about $12 Billion a month. :)

Fair enough. I still wish the "Content owners" would digitize everything (Even ancient stuff from the early 1900's) and offer it up for 25-50 cents a watch using an on-demand method. They could rake in billions yearly from that old content sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere.

Blue_Blazer:GBB: Blue_Blazer: If they want to start a conversation about a la carte channels, they are gonna find a lot of people who start offering to pay for exactly 5 channels, no more and no less.

Until we find out that those 5 channels will be more expensive a al carte than just subscribing to "basic" service. That's the payback cable providers gave out for being forced to provide a la carte by the FCC: make it inconvenient to the customer to hand pick which channels they want. And that's exactly what they are doing to CBS.

Then I'll just give up and go back to streaming/pirating 100% of the time. Doesn't really matter to me I guess, but I'll pay for my TV while it's a reasonable price.Although I live in a mixed market for NFL games, so it's a crap shoot whether I actually get the games I want to see on my TV. Half the time I have to pirate stream them anyway.

I'm 37 and have lived on my own since 18. Never once in those 19 years have I paid a penny for cable. When I was younger I had better things to do and now I stream everything I watch over the internet. It works, it's easy and I have saved / will continue to save a ton of cash.

Kazrath:DubtodaIll: realmolo: Kids growing up these days don't care about TV. They watch YouTube, and probably Netflix.

15 years from now, when the young children of today have their own homes, they won't be paying for cable TV. They won't care. And that's when things will get crazy.

I'm not paying for cable now, I've just got internet + netflix and that provides plenty of entertainment for a much lower cost than cable.

You do realize that is only because of the current model. Many of the shows you like would never have been produced if those specific stations did not automatically receive funding per subscriber.

That said: I pretty much only watch football myself. My TV (For the purposes of cable) has not even been turned on since the last superbowl. I see no reason to watch the broadcasts of the small handful of shows I like and be forced to view the crappy commercials. I would much rather watch commercial free versions.

You really think theatre is motivated by money? It's more that money has co-opted theatre because people love it so much. Entertainment will always be made regardless of whether there is money in it or not. I like watching things on the internet vs cable because there aren't ads interrupting the shows/movies.

Lawnchair:gfid: The thing is, if cable companies and dish companies keep pulling this kind of thing they're going to just speed up their demise and force Showtime and AMC and whoever happens to be next to start offering online subscriptions without going through a TV provider.

And that will be a win/win/lose (win for consumers, win for the networks, lose for TWC, Dish, et al.)

If you don't hold the line somewhere, it's a dollar more every. single. year. until the stratosphere is breached.

Going a-la-carte could be a win for consumers maybe. It's very little win for the networks. The number of people willing to pay for the a-la-carte is much smaller. Right now, lets say AMC gets 40 cents for every single cable subscriber (whether they watch AMC or not). In the a-la-carte model, they have to charge more than 40 cents, since not everyone wants AMC. If they charge $4 a month, they have to sign up 1/10th of the current cable households. Even that is a massive challenge. Virtually no other model is going to provide as much cash as getting 40 cents from every cable-sub household.

The best guess is that most channels would be priced similarly to HBO/Showtime/Cinemax and thus the bill for 5 channels would be pretty similar to the current national average cable bill. Ironically the lone people who might be better off would be dire hard fans of ESPN (who watch nothing else).

Southern100:Lawnchair: Ad rates aren't even good enough to produce reality-TV-rate schlock any more (and keep the executives swimming in coke and the stockholders happy), let alone quality.

SyFy seems to do ok, and as of 2009 it was estimated they only charged cable companies around 21¢ per subscriber.

In fact, here's the whole chart (from 2009), taken from this site: http://allthingsd.com/20100308/hate-paying-for-cable-heres-the-reason - why/ and put together by SNL Kagan (an in-depth analysis and proprietary data on the constantly-evolving media and communications business):

[i0.wp.com image 708x643]Again, these #s are from 2009, so quite a few of them will be higher now, and this doesn't include all the channels available (like the big networks - these are all cable-only channels).

An average of 20¢ a cable channel. Just for the 172 channels listed, that's almost $35 a month JUST in carriage fees, and that doesn't even cover all of the available channels.

$4.08 a month JUST for ESPN. Whether you watch it or not. (and it's estimated it's between $5-$6 today).

But if A&E, SyFy, AMC, and others can produce original programming on 25¢ a month, I *do* have to wonder why CBS wants so much more. And keep in mind that's ONLY to the network itself - the local stations (affiliates) are apparently happy with whatever carriage fees they're getting.

It's very likely that sports fans are subsidizing you, since there are more of them (ratings aren't exactly the same but follow a pretty similar pattern to carriage fees), and they pay 60% of their bill for non-sports channels.

nelsonal:It's very likely that sports fans are subsidizing you, since there are more of them (ratings aren't exactly the same but follow a pretty similar pattern to carriage fees), and they pay 60% of their bill for non-sports channels.

OhwaitYou'reseriousletmelaughevenharder.jpg

You're doing nothing but subsidizing people like A-Rod who will take home millions of dollars and pump their bodies up with drugs while demanding that cities like Detroit spend a half a billion dollars to buy a stadium and brag about all the jobs (i.e. hot dog vendors) it creates.

Sports is bullshiat - it's not even sporting anymore. There's more sportsmanship involved in sprinkling the ground with bait and sitting on your back porch drinking and shooting at any deer that come up to eat it. (which is to say none)